Threlebe
by curtain weaver
Summary: Oneshot. After one of the last battles an Order member is missing. It takes time to find the way back.


Disclaimer: Anything you recognize belongs to JK Rowling & Co.

A/N The idea of this character still alive although JKR didn't let the person survive came from "Harry Potter and the Golden Fortress" by Loons Gerringer. Thanks for the inspiration and the 30 delightful chapters written 2005/2006_**.  
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_**Threlebe**_

_T_oward evening the rain drops died down to a drizzle as we caught the first glimps. Something covered in hair of a dusty faded brown lay huddled on a ledge half way down the west cliff of Noon Sun Chasm looming over a now tamed river running in a rocky bed. It stirred showing soiled cloth, showing it is human. A pitiful sight, seeming barely alive while curled up. But a human none the less and as such it should have a name. To find one that suits we take a closer look at what dwells inside. This human's heart makes us want to cry. Sorrow, pain and a black net of hopelessness define its fragments, unchanging as the outer form through the cycle of the moon. There is a trait of incompleteness in its heart and its mind, intensely felt above all else. Threlebe, an abbreviation summing up the foremost feeling, too painful to fully show itself. Threlebe, suited as a name until the time might come when the other is regained.

_O_n the ledge Threlebe had piled a make-shift wall of rocks to prevent moving too close to the edge when, in the hours of exhaustion, the pictures of flashes, fear, smoke and fur claimed much of what should have been sleep. Sounds of screams and snarls resounding from the subconscious. There was only a narrow path from the top to the small ledge and continuing on the other side of this retreat, down to the river. Days or more had passed since hunger and thirst first led Threlebe to wander both ways. Herbs, roots and small animals could be found up the path when you knew where to look and Threlebe knew, had been trained to survive. The river's water though not as abundant as it used to be before people decided to redirect most of it for various purposes still flowed, steadily now and drinkable. Threlebe was left with little resources but a young and healthy body and a mind that cut through the hopelessness whenever the instinct for survival became too strong to be bound down.

_N_ow she let fate be her puppeteer on every move, copying what the game did. Yes, Threlebe is a woman. A grieving woman with thick brown hair grown to an unusual length. It helped keep her warm if the wind picked up or in the increasing chill of the early hours before the sun started to warm the clearings and the edge of the forest to which hunger led her in the morning and later during the day. She dug out a root here and nibbled at a twig there. Now and then licking a glistening dew drop before the sun beat her to it. Threlebe was growing calm. She didn't count the days, maybe weeks, she didn't care about the present or worry about the future. Things happened or they didn't. Nightmares came and went. But now, sitting on moss and shed leaves, leaning against the twisted trunk of an old hornbeam, she began to wonder. They must be looking for her.

_K_notted hair and tattered robes flying behind her, she starts to run. Yes, Threlebe is a witch. A witch without a wand, running and gasping for breath as she realizes what she had been doing. Guessing where she had come from in a state of shock after she had fled from a battle that had shattered all her hope, had taken her love, the person her life had just started to revolve around. He had left her behind. But she was not the only one. There must still be friends out there. They would be looking for her and needing her. In her haste she stumbles over a well worn log on a deer path she is following and comes to rest right in front of a smooth but slightly weather beaten piece of wood. It is hers. She grabs hold of it and without giving it any thought, she apparates back to the first place she can think of, right in front of the wrought iron gates.

_S_he lives! She opens the gates and turns her hair back to short and spiky. Shouts come from a distance.

"Tonks, is that you?"

"Yes!" Tonks or _Threlebe_, _T_he _h_alf _re_mus _le_ft _be_hind.


End file.
